FORGING A STRATEGY FOR THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

By Rohini Hensman

Following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in May 1998,
a peace movement has begun to emerge in both countries. If this movement is to become
a powerful force, however, it will have to be more clear about some of the issues
which continue to divide anti-nuclear campaigners. Three basic issues are: (1) How
valid is the notion of deterrence? A section of the peace movement has traditionally
maintained and evidently still believes that minimal deterrence is a valid policy,
although many others reject the notion completely. (2) What demands should be made
in relation to the CTBT? In India, the BJP originally said that it would not sign
the treaty in its present form on the grounds that it is 'discriminatory'1, and there
seems to be widespread agreement with this position even among those who oppose weaponisation;
only a small number of anti-nuclear activists, notably Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik2,
have argued consistently that India should sign. More recently, the government has
indicated it may sign on certain conditions. The position of the Pakistani government
is similarly ambivalent, but peace activists in Pakistan have been more consistently
pro-CTBT. The issue clearly demands much greater seriousness than the cavalier manner
in which some commentators brush it aside,3 totally inappropriate when taking a decision
on which millions of lives may hang. (3) What demands should activists pursue in
order to develop a mass movement opposed to nuclear weaponisation?

These issues need to be debated if the peace movement is to evolve a coherent strategy.
This paper is intended as a contribution to the debate.

Nuclear deterrence or nuclear disarmament?

My arguments proceed from the general principle that the actual use of nuclear weapons
is not justifiable under any circumstances, because these weapons inflict death,
destruction and hideous suffering on large numbers of innocent people; there is no
defence against them. Even tactical weapons, despite their smaller scale of destruction,
affect non-combatants, and, by lowering the threshold between nuclear and conventional
weaponry, considerably increase the risk that conventional conflicts will escalate
into full-scale nuclear war. I do not therefore engage with those who can actually
conceive of the maiming and killing of innocent women, children and men on grounds
which they regard as compelling; such advocates of nuclear genocide are surely beyond
the reach of rational ethical argument.4

The only logical - if immoral - argument for nuclear weapons is that given by President
Truman to justify the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: namely, that their
possession by a country is a means of achieving global political dominance. This
also seems to be the rationale for the long-standing RSS commitment to India becoming
a nuclear weapons power. As a BJP functionary said, 'It was not a nuclear test but
a test of our nationalism...We stood for it all our lives.'5 This kind of nuclear
nationalism is independent of threat perceptions and driven by a quest for global
grandeur. However, this rationale is rarely acknowledged; instead, the development
of these weapons of mass destruction is most frequently justified in the name of
'deterrence'.

The first thing to note about the so-called theory of deterrence is that it is scarcely
a theory in the scientific sense, but merely a doctrine legitimising the possession
of nuclear weapons with the claim that they prevent nuclear war. To test this claim
the best we can do is to look at various situations and consider the evidence.

It is well known that the USA has considered or threatened the use of nuclear weapons
against various targets, including the USSR, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Can we be
sure they would not have carried out the attacks if they had not been threatened
with retaliation by the USSR and later China? Given that the US had already used
nuclear bombs against civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we cannot rule
out the possibility. Again, it has been suggested that if Japan had possessed the
means to carry out retaliatory nuclear strikes on US cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
would not have been bombed. We don't know if this is true, but it could be. All we
can say is that when the USSR and China first developed nuclear weapons, it was in
the context of explicit nuclear threats against them.

However, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence cannot account for the fact that nuclear
weapons have never been used after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not even in the context
of bitter conflicts between nuclear weapons states (NWSs) and countries which are
not covered by any nuclear umbrella (e.g. the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, or the
USA and Iraq). It seems more plausible to suppose that the real deterrent has been
not the possession of a nuclear arsenal but the unremitting efforts of peace activists
- foremost among them the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors - to educate people about
the horrors of nuclear weapons and convince the world that their use is a crime against
humanity. 'Moral deterrence' is more consistent with the limited evidence we have
and based, moreover, on a more humane conception of human nature which does not have
to assume that people would go around committing the most heinous crimes against
helpless, innocent persons, were it not for the fear of punishment.

Deterrence might be an understandable reaction to an immediate threat of nuclear
attack. However, if we stand by the initial assumption that the actual use of nuclear
weapons is unjustifiable under any circumstances, then this response can only be
a bluff: i.e. we say 'If you kill thousands (or millions) of innocent people in our
country, we will kill thousands (or millions) of innocent people in yours', but we
do not intend to do any such thing. However, bluffing cannot be a long term strategy;
it may work once or twice, not more. In the long run, either both sides will have
to move towards disarmament, or a 'credible deterrent' must be built up. The latter
is what happened in the course of the Cold War.

A deterrent will be credible only if those who possess it are prepared to use it.
Thus there is a logical contradiction at the heart of the arguments of those, like
K.Subrahmanyam, who opine that nuclear bombs will bring peace between India and Pakistan6:
peace and security presuppose mutual confidence that the weapons will never be used
- but in that case, why invest so massively in a completely useless exercise, since
these weapons cannot act as a deterrent unless one believes that they will be used
under certain circumstances? Conversely, if they are to act as a credible deterrent,
each country must believe that the other is ready to use it, and must therefore be
constantly ready to respond in kind, which is hardly a situation conducive to a sense
of security or an attitude of peacefulness!

The latter situation is what seems to have followed the two sets of nuclear tests,
with political leaders of each side publicly talking about using nuclear weapons
on the other. Soon after the tests, Vajpayee declared that India was now a nuclear
weapons state and 'would not hesitate to use its weapons to defend its security';
P.K.Iyengar, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said that 'the low
yield devices in particular have given the army immense firepower for local area
warfare', and 'if you put a nuclear weapon on a missile, it costs peanuts compared
to arming an aircraft...Missiles are the most cost effective way of fighting a war
next time'; and one columnist wrote about India creating 'tactical, low-yield weapons
that can actually be used as mortar, fighter and submarine shells in war'. 7 Not
to be outdone, Pakistan's External Affairs Minister Gohar Ayub Khan appeared on television
after the Pakistani tests, talking about a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan
which would occur so rapidly that it would be impossible to determine who fired the
first missile. Meanwhile, terrorism in Kashmir and border clashes intensified.8 'Peace
at N-point' doesn't seem to be working.

In fact, India was under no threat of nuclear attack when it tested; not even proponents
of the 'deterrence' and 'national security' arguments claim that it was.9 The argument
is, rather, that it could, at some indefinite future date, be subjected to nuclear
blackmail or attack unless it has a deterrent. So we are not talking about a desperate
bluff to avert an impending nuclear attack but, rather, a long-term policy. Some
cite China as the main threat, others cite the USA; in fact, potentially, all NWSs
are a threat: that is precisely why anti-nuclear activists demand global nuclear
disarmament. If security from nuclear blackmail or attack is the real aim, then that
is surely the most obvious way of achieving it. Put like this, it becomes evident
that the demand for a 'deterrent' implies abandoning the goal of nuclear disarmament.
This is clear from the pronouncements of Subrahmanyam: 'Once a country goes nuclear
it is difficult for it to retrace the steps'; 'India has become a nuclear weapon
state and that is an irreversible process'.10 This at least is an admission that
one cannot travel in two opposite directions - towards armament and towards disarmament
- at the same time!

Adopting 'deterrence' as a long-term policy thus involves living in the readiness
to commit genocide. In the case of India and Pakistan, such a situation would, for
obvious reasons, be especially devastating. Indians would have to consent to the
possibility that their state will kill friends and relations across the border, and
for Pakistanis vice versa. It is hard to imagine most ordinary people in either country
being prepared to accept this or its psychological consequences.

The prospect of a nuclear attack on China - the other neighbour cited in Prime Minister
Vajpayee's letter to President Clinton as prompting a nuclear deterrent on the part
of India - is no less horrifying. We are talking about people who share many of our
own problems and aspirations, including beautiful children with their wide-eyed,
trusting curiosity about the world. What kind of person could seriously contemplate
subjecting these innocent people, who have done us no harm, to the fate suffered
by the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Moreover, far from ensuring South Asia's security, deterrence has led from a position
of relative safety to the brink of nuclear war. Deterrence against China was the
pretext for India going nuclear, although China had never threatened India with nuclear
weapons. The 1974 Pokhran test initiated the arms race with Pakistan, and the tests
in May 1998 have exacerbated this to the point where even a stray incident might
trigger a nuclear exchange. As one senior columnist pointed out, 'India may have
80 bombs to Pakistan's eight, but in nuclear war, there are no winners.'11 The large
number of people expressing similar sentiments testify to the dramatic increase in
fear and insecurity following the tests. One of the most powerful protests was this
one: 'As school students, we are deeply shocked at the nuclear tests conducted by
both India and Pakistan, and by the nuclearisation of the subcontinent...We would
like to know whether we are to enter the twenty-first century in an atmosphere of
peace and amity, or an atmosphere where the possession of weapons of mass murder
is a matter of pride...and whether we are condemned to a future in the shadow of
the mushroom cloud.'12

In fact, nuclear weapons do not even guarantee 'national security' in the narrow
sense of state security. The massive nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union did not
prevent it from falling apart and almost certainly contributed to its disintegration
by withdrawing too much of the national income for military expenditure. Indian ultra-nationalists
hope that the same thing will happen to Pakistan as a result of an arms race with
India,13 ignoring the fact that the same logic could lead to the disintegration of
India herself, especially if she gets into an arms race with China in an attempt
to ensure second-strike capacity (even minimal) against a country whose nuclear programme
is far more advanced.

Moreover, the doctrine of deterrence assumes that nuclear weapons somehow come custom-built
for use as deterrents and nothing else. This is nonsense, of course. A weapon is
a weapon and can be used for whatever purpose its owner wishes.14 The US claims its
nuclear arsenal is a 'deterrent' but has used it on dozens of occasions to threaten
and blackmail other countries; likewise no sooner had India conducted the tests than
politicians like L.K.Advani and Madan Lal Khurana started threatening Pakistan.

Let us leave the last word in the argument over deterrence to the victims of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki who, arguably, are the only people on earth who have suffered the catastrophic
consequences of not having a deterrent. According to proponents of deterrence, one
would expect them to be the most strident in their demand that Japan should have
a deterrent to prevent any repetition of the pain and horror they went through and,
indeed, are still suffering. But in that case why has the Japanese peace movement,
led by these Hibakusha (survivors), consistently and passionately demanded 'Zero
Nuclear Weapons'? Dr Mariko Kitano explains:

'I am the grand daughter of a survivor of Nagasaki, and I bear the scars of that
living hell in my deformed feet, one eye that cannot see and a left hand that only
lies motionless at my side...How can any sane human being believe detonating nuclear
devices provides security? Is sitting on a ticking time bomb a position of security..?
Is sitting on the brink of nuclear war a secure position to be in? I think not...Why
do you think Japan never entered the arms race? Because we experienced the horror
of nuclear energy in our homes; we saw our loved ones charred in front of our eyes;
our houses crumble like sandcastles. Neither India nor Pakistan have seen the sightless
eyes of a newborn in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who till this day is born with defects
through no fault of his own.'15

A statement by eighteen Japanese scientists on Hiroshima Day 1998 makes the point
even more strongly: 'The logic of nuclear deterrence has been used by both India
and Pakistan to justify their acquisition of nuclear arms...We regard this..as an
unparelleled insult to the victims of nuclear war and to their unrelenting pleas
for nuclear disarmament over the past half century.' And on Nagasaki Day, the mayor
of the city said on behalf of its citizens that 'the tests by India and Pakistan
led to "deepening our emotional wounds and our pains."'16 If, as the evidence
suggests, moral deterrence is what has prevented the use of nuclear weapons for the
past fifty years, then conducting nuclear tests and legitimising nuclear weapons
with the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is indeed an insult and injury to the survivors
of these two nuclear attacks. Anti-nuclear activists cannot adopt the doctrine of
nuclear deterrence in any form without undermining their own cause.

The CTBT as a step towards global nuclear disarmament

Since objections to the CTBT have been discussed in detail elsewhere,17 I shall
merely add a few points:

(1) Unless it is recognised that the CTBT places significant restraints on
the NWSs, it is impossible to understand the struggle taking place around it in the
USA. Strong right-wing resistance in the Republican-dominated Congress and Senate
have prevented ratification of the CTBT, and measures like the Stockpile Stewardship
Program and keeping the Nevada Test Site in readiness indicate that the nuclear establishment
hopes for its collapse. On the other side, anti-nuclear groups have been campaigning
to secure ratification. The Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, consisting of 17
anti-nuclear groups, has been 'focused on achieving difficult near-term measures
that will lead to a nuclear free world...The Coalition and many other grassroots
groups across the nation are now heavily involved in working for Senate ratification
of the CTBT.' Their press release condemning India's nuclear tests pointed out that:
'Earlier this year, the President called on the Senate to approve the CTBT in 1998.
However, Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
so far has refused to hold hearings on the Treaty. He suggests that the US should
resume nuclear testing.'18

Another press release by anti-nuclear groups after Pakistan's tests notes that the
CTBT 'remains bogged down in Congress by a small group of powerful Republican Senators...
"Nuclear disarmament activists have been pushing this treaty for over 40 years,
but the opportunity to stop testing might slip away if the U.S. doesn't ratify now,"
said Gordon Clark, Executive Director of Peace Action, the nation's largest peace
organisation.'19

Peace Action, which began as a movement protesting the nuclear weapons tests of the
1950s and now has forty thousand members across the USA, has been 'pushing the US
Senate very hard to ratify the CTBT...We always keep "steps" like the CTBT
in the framework of nuclear weapons abolition...Peace Action's largest project for
the next several months will be bringing peace issues into Congressional elections.
In particular, activists will be distributing voter guides which state the positions
of candidates on issues such as the CTBT...We recognise the responsibility we have
as citizens of the nation with the largest nuclear weapons arsenal...The level of
public distaste for nuclear weapons remains strong. A poll last year showed 87% of
Americans supporting nuclear weapons abolition.'20

The other reason why the pro-nuclear lobby in the US are staunchly opposed to the
CTBT is that the international monitoring of nuclear activities which is mandatory
under the terms of the treaty, is construed by them as a breach of their national
sovereignty. 'Just as India has refused to sign the CTBT, the Republican-dominated
US Congress has refused to ratify it. In both countries hawks and doves...are in
conflict and in both countries the hawks do not like "national security"
to be hemmed in by any international agreement.'21 From the standpoint of anti-nuclear
activists, on the other hand, this is another important reason for supporting the
CTBT, since without international monitoring and control global disarmament will
be impossible.

There are indications that a similar struggle is going on in China, which has also
signed but not ratified the CTBT, with some sections 'reserving the option of resuming
nuclear testing,' and others 'working to ratify the CTBT', which would cut off that
option.22 The former have gained strength from India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests
and refusal to sign the CTBT: Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan is reported to
have said that China did not have serious problems in signing the CTBT, 'but the
nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have changed the situation'.23

(2) There are benefits of a ban on testing, even on its own. Underground nuclear
explosions contaminate the earth by releasing massive amounts of radioactivity, some
of which leaks out into the atmosphere, ground water, earth and rock. The American
film Dark Circle, which is about campaigns of local residents against a nuclear bomb
factory and a planned nuclear reactor, shows that nuclear weapons kill even when
they are not used: workers in the factory or power plant, residents in the vicinity
of the test site, reactor or factory, personnel carrying out the tests, all suffered
a much higher than normal incidence of brain tumours, leukemia, and other forms of
cancer; newborn animals and babies were much more liable to suffer from birth defects.

Greenpeace International, which staged protests against the Indian and Pakistani
tests in places as far apart as London, Prague and Mexico City, strongly contested
the government's claim that there was no radioactive release into the atmosphere
from the Pokhran tests, citing official reports on underground tests in the US, former
Soviet Union and France to show that serious radioactive contamination of the atmosphere
and ground water as well as earth and rock took place; they demanded that India should
sign the CTBT unconditionally.24 Greenpeace cannot be accused of double standards,
since they have opposed the nuclear programmes of all countries equally strongly;
indeed, one of their activists was killed in the course of protests against the French
tests.25 Their protests and recommendation to sign the CTBT therefore carry weight,
as coming from a genuine commitment to peace and protection of the environment.

Moreover, in less advanced countries like India and Pakistan, the dark circle of
death looms even larger. P.K.Iyengar's calculation that nuclear weapons are cheap
ignores the costs of delivery and command and control systems, which are extremely
high, and also makes the naÔve assumption that having nuclear weapons reduces
the need for conventional weapons, whereas in all nuclear weapons states the opposite
has been the case.26 The millions of rupees expended on the nuclear programme are
at the cost of the many thousands of people who die every year for lack of basic
necessities like water, food, shelter, sanitation and health care.

(3) The Japanese peace movement is in favour of the CTBT. At a meeting in
Bombay in June, Ken Sakamoto, Secretary-General of Gensuikin's Hiroshima branch and
a member of the Japan Teachers' Association, said that the CTBT is a small but important
step towards nuclear disarmament. Yasuhiko Taketa, who survived the bomb as a young
boy, said that the nuclear weapons states are partly responsible for the Indian tests,
because of their refusal to disarm so far; but just as the Indian tests were a step
backward, the CTBT, despite minor loopholes, would be a step forward. It is hard
to see anyone denouncing Taketa, who has spent his entire adult life campaigning
for global disarmament, as an agent of US nuclear hegemony! The reason why the Japanese
peace movement supports the CTBT is, rather, that unlike Indian 'experts' who make
authoritative statements about the treaty on the basis of considerable ignorance
and even hearsay, they know what they are talking about. And unlike our hawks in
doves' clothing, they are genuinely committed to global nuclear disarmament.

Those in India who oppose the CTBT, including the Left Parties, should be aware that
they are aligning themselves with the US hawks against the victims of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Ironically, those who oppose the treaty in the name of 'anti-imperialism'
actually end up supporting the most imperialistic sections of the US ruling establishment!

(4) It has been argued that signing the CTBT will perpetuate a situation of
nuclear apartheid, therefore we should not sign the CTBT unless the NWSs agree to
a time-bound programme for disarmament. This was the stand taken by Arundhati Ghose
at the Conference on Disarmament, and at first sight it seems an appealing argument,
because everyone is sick of the hypocrisy, double standards and cynicism of the NWSs
who want to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries while maintaining
their own deadly arsenals. It sounds fair to say to them, 'Unless you disarm yourselves,
we are going to arm ourselves.' But let's look a bit more closely at the logic of
this argument.

A struggle against apartheid is a struggle against oppression and for equal rights.
If we claim something as a right for ourselves, we cannot deny the same right to
others. Thus if we claim that we have a 'right' to a nuclear arsenal, we are implicitly
conceding that the NWSs have a 'right' to their arsenals too. Conversely, if we deny
that anyone can ever have the 'right' to oppress others or engage in mass extermination,
we certainly cannot claim that we have the 'right' to do that! So under cover of
taking a hard line on disarmament, the 'nuclear apartheid' argument in fact confers
legitimacy (as a 'right') on these weapons of mass destruction.

Again, what is the real purpose of linking a concrete arms control measure like the
CTBT to a demand which we know from the start will not be met? A possible analogy
is a trade union rejecting a collective agreement which limits management rights
to restructure the enterprise unilaterally, on the grounds that it does not contain
a time-bound commitment to the abolition of capital as such. It might have been seen
as a bargaining tactic, viz. that you demand more than you expect in order to get
more than what the other side is offering, if India had cooperated with the non-aligned
nations and other non-NWSs to draft and push through a tougher CTBT, and had signed
it in September 1996. But, 'despite its rhetoric about wanting tough nuclear disarmament
language in the treaty, India had refused to work with its non-aligned colleagues
to strengthen the treaty's preamble by confronting Britain, France, and the United
States with a coordinated nuclear disarmament proposal. This failure to cooperate
with non-aligned nations on an issue of mutual interest seemed to confirm the view
in Geneva that India was less interested in getting a better treaty than with pandering
to an ever more strident sector of domestic opinion that wanted New Delhi to demonstrate
its nuclear capability and to keep all of its nuclear options open.'27 This view
was dramatically confirmed when India went ahead and conducted five tests in May
1998.

One is under no illusion about the hypocrisy of representatives of the USA, which
has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and has conducted thousands of nuclear
tests, when it condemns India's weapon tests. But now the government of India has
equally lost the moral right to criticise US nuclear policy. 'By joining the nuclear
club, in fact, if not in form, India has diluted its stance on disarmament; today
it sounds as hypocritical as other nuclear powers do on the subject'. Or as a CND
spokesman put it, 'it is sad to see India using the same sort of rhetoric and justification
that Britain has over the past 30 years'.28 India has joined the oppressive nuclear
regime as an oppressor, and has thereby lost the right to speak for the oppressed.

(5) Again, it has been said that "India will not sign the CTBT under
duress; we cannot subscribe to it when a gun is put to our head and we are informed
that either you sign this piece of paper or else..."29

What a paradox that India should have to be pressurised to sign a treaty which she
herself proposed to begin with and supported for forty years! India's previous support
for the CTBT and global disarmament stemmed from the country's espousal of both non-violence
and non-alignment. From the spiritual legacy of the Buddha all the way to Gandhi,
the philosophy of non-violence has been an important part of Indian culture and identity,
and the nuclear weapons programme is a direct attack on this tradition. Another aspect
of India's post-Independence political project was embodied in its freedom struggle
and position of leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement: the struggle against national
oppression and great-power domination. Nuclear weaponisation represents a radical
departure from this tradition too. The ethos of solidarity with the oppressed people
of all nations is being replaced by a callous disregard for the lives of those who
have no desire to have a nuclear arsenal, and a refusal of solidarity with or from
them; the aim now is not to oppose oppression and big-power domination but to join
the oppressor states and become one of the big powers. This, however, is largely
an official stance.
Despite the consensus claimed in favour of the tests, it became increasingly clear
in the following weeks that many ordinary people felt a deep sense of loss, although
most of them kept their feelings to themselves for fear of being branded 'anti-national'.

The inhabitants of Pokhran and Khetolai responded with applause when the Japanese
peace delegation visiting the area called for abolition of nuclear weapons and tests.
The response was the same when novelist Arundhati Roy announced, "I'm willing
to sign any nuclear non-proliferation treaty or nuclear test ban treaty that's going,"
at a conference in Chennai.30 So exactly whose India is it that has to be bullied
into signing the CTBT? Certainly not the India of Mahatma Gandhi, who uncompromisingly
opposed nuclear weapons and advocated unilateral disarmament, nor of Jawaharlal Nehru,
whose efforts to achieve a test ban can still succeed if they are not sabotaged by
his successors, nor of millions of peace-loving Indians, who want the abolition of
nuclear weapons and tests once they know about about their effects. The India represented
by these social and political sectors would in fact demand that the USA, Russia and
China ratify the CTBT without delay, so that the world as a whole can progress to
stronger nuclear disarmament measures.

What Next? Demands and Strategy

Once it is established that the possession of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan
leads to a high risk of nuclear war, the obvious solution is denuclearisation of
the subcontinent as an urgent necessity. Discussions need to be initiated in the
peace movement on the most practical suggestions for achieving this. One proposal
is campaigning for South Asia to be made into a nuclear-weapon-free zone under the
supervision of a number of non-nuclear weapons states (non-NWSs), and this deserves
serious consideration. Two types of objection are likely to be raised, (a) principled
and (b) practical. The former consists of the argument that it is discriminatory
to denuclearise South Asia while other parts of the world retain nuclear weapons.
This is like saying that even if you suffer a high risk of fire, you should not acquire
fire-fighting equipment unless your neighbours - who are likewise at risk, but less
so - do the same. Or arguing that we must condemn our children to live in the shadow
of the mushroom cloud in order to prove that we can be just as genocidal as any other
nation. The simple answer to this objection is that it is in our own interest to
avoid the brutalisation, fear and insecurity that mutual deterrence implies.
(b) The practical objection is that this is not a realistic goal. But what alternatives
do we have? George Fernandes and others have declared their intention of going ahead
with weaponisation, and Pakistan will inevitably follow suit. Given the levels of
mutual fear which have been generated, there is no way in which isolated peace movements
in each country could gain mass support for unilateral disarmament. The suggestion
of a nuclear-free zone at least has the advantages that (1) it will mean a joint
campaign in India, Pakistan and other countries of the region for bilateral disarmament,
(2) a neutral monitoring system will be set up to ensure compliance, and (3) there
are already such zones in Latin America and the Pacific, and we can draw on their
experience.

Simultaneously, there needs to be a campaign to push both governments to sign and
ratify the CTBT unconditionally. It is possible that the BJP, for its own pragmatic
reasons, may agree to sign. If so, the other political parties, including those of
the Left, should be pressurised to ratify this decision. If the BJP refuses to sign
in the end, the Opposition parties should come together and form a secular government
which will sign and ratify the treaty with the support of some of the BJP allies.
The pressure of sanctions has forced the Pakistani government to reconsider its stand
on the CTBT, and if the Indian government is likewise willing to sign, this would
certainly curb the arms race even if the denuclearisation campaign does not at first
succeed.

What will happen if India neither signs nor agrees to bilateral denuclearisation?
It is likely that nuclear lobbies in the NWSs will take India's refusal as an excuse
to sabotage the CTBT, resume testing, and go ahead with producing new and more deadly
weapons. The India-Pakistan arms race will increase insecurity and poverty in South
Asia. An India-China arms race will put intolerable strains on the Indian economy.
The entire momentum towards global nuclear disarmament will be lost. Millions more
people will suffer as a result of nuclear tests, accidents, weapons production. Are
those who oppose regional disarmament and signing the CTBT willing to take the responsibility
for all this?

Many people who opposed the Indian nuclear tests have nonetheless bought into some
arguments of the hawks in this country. This large middle group, which includes the
majority of the Left parties and sections of Congress and the UF, have to rethink
their stand - unless they want to go down in history as politicians who opposed global
nuclear disarmament. Secondly, the overwhelming majority of people in India do not
have the information to make up their minds, and it is the duty of those of us who
have access to that information to make it available to them, without distorting
or concealing anything.

Notes

1 'The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee
categorically dismissed all speculation that India would succumb without protesting
the provisions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. "There is no question of
India accepting this discriminatory treaty. No one should have any illusions on this
score."' ('India will not succumb: PM', Economic Times, 16/5/98); 'Vajpayee
said, "....taken as a whole, the CTBT is discriminatory..." ( 'Ours will
never be weapons of aggression: PM', Business Standard, 16/5/98)
2 See, for example, Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, Testing Times: The Global Stake
in a Nuclear Test Ban, Dag Hammarskold Foundation, Sweden, 1996
3 A good example is GPD's statement, 'The CTBT is discriminatory... Politically it
was wrong to sign the treaty. It still is.' (One Part Wisdom, Three Parts Coward!'
Economic and Political Weekly, 30/5/98, p.1294)
4 I myself favour a position of non-violence, having seen so many instances where
the adoption of violent means - which are also necessarily undemocratic - completely
subverts the noblest of ends; but my argument does not presuppose such a position.
It is compatible with recognition of the right to armed self-defence against armed
aggression, using conventional weapons and avoiding attacks on non-combatants.
5 'Govt's hands not tied over CTBT', Business Standard, 13/5/98
6 'Peace at N-point', Sunday Times of India, 31/5/98
7 'Vajpayee declares India as a nuclear weapons state', Economic Times, 16/5/98;
'N-arms to take pressure off defence budget', Business Standard,19/5/98; 'No stop-and-go
for nuclear science', Economic Times, 19/5/98; David Devadas, 'Hardtalk', Business
Standard, 21/5/98
8 See, for example, 'Post-Colombo, Indo-Pak relations touch a new low', Economic
Times, 9/8/98, and many other reports
9 E.g. K.Subrahmanyam admits, in so many words, that 'India did not go nuclear because
of any immediate military threat.' ('Understanding China: Sun Tzu and Shakti', Times
of India, 5/6/98)
10 'Tests in national interest: experts', Economic Times, 12/5/98; 'The reluctant
N-power', Economic Times, 13/5/98
11 Swaminathan Aiyar, 'Now let the bombs ensure peace', Economic Times,29/5/98. So
much for Defence Minister George Fernandes' idiotic boast that 'the Pakistani tests
were "nowhere near" the explosions conducted by India' (Economic Times
1/6/98)!
12 Letters to the Editor, Times of India, 22/6/98
13 This was publicly stated by one of them at a meeting at the YMCA, Bombay, on 24/6/98
14See E.P.Thompson, 1982, Zero Option, Merlin Press, London
15 Letter from Nagasaki, June 1998)
16 Appeal by eighteen Japanese scientists, 6/8/98; 'Obuchi deplores India, Pakistan
for nuclear tests'' Times of India,10/8/98
17 See Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, 'Why India Should Sign CTBT: Returning to
Our Own Agenda', Economic and Political Weekly, 19-25/9/98
18 Communication from Daryl Kimball dated 18/6/98; Press release dated 11/5/98
19 Press release dated 28/5/98
20 Communication from Tracy Moavero.
21 Gail Omvedt, The Hindu, 20/6/98
22 'China reserves option for nuclear tests', Economic Times, 3/6/98; 'Stop India
now, China tells world,' Business Standard, 15/5/98
23 'China takes tough stand against Indian N-tests', Times of India, 10/8/98
24 'Greenpeace says tests to affect environs,' Business Standard, 15/5/98; 'Greenpeace
blasts India over nuke tests', Business Standard, 18/5/98
25 The Greenpeace film 'You Can't Sink a Rainbow';
26 'N-arms to take pressure off defence budget', Business Standard,19/5/98; 'No stop-and-go
for nuclear science', Economic Times, 19/5/98
27 Rebecca Johnson, 'The In-Comprehensive Test Ban', 1997; See also Praful Bidwai,
'CTBT: To Be or Not To Be', 1996 (both on the Internet)
28 Arun Kumar, 'This smile is maya,' Economic Times,13/6/98; 'Peace groups lambast
West for double standards', Business Standard, 15/5/98
29 'Jaswant offers scope for bargain at UN press meet,' Economic Times,11/6/98; 'India
will not sign CTBT under duress', Business Standard, 11/7/98
30 Jean Dreze, 'The Nuclear Tests: From Hiroshima to Pokhran', Frontline, 4-17 July;
Arundhati Roy, 'The End of Imagination', Frontline, 1-14 August, 1998